Newbie Setup Help

[Carsen]

Hey all! Noob here, adopting a puppy-tame 5 y/o Argentine B&W tegu soon. I've only had leopard geckos and arachnids, so, having a 4 foot lizard is new to me. Please be gentle with criticism.

I'm planning on letting him free-roam my room, dimensions are approx. 20x15 or larger, and floors are hardwood. I keep my room temp at 74-78°F during the day and drops to 69-72°F at night, which I understand is cold for a reptile. I'm going to set up his heat and UV lamps over a huge slab of driftwood, and I'll have an XL dog cage on hand in case there's some sort of emergency situation and I need to cage him.
I'm going to have a large plastic bin filled w/ damp moss and soil for a humid/shed hide, and a kiddie pool for water.
I'll also have a harness for when I take him out of the house (like vet trips).

Am I missing anything?
Also, what kind of heat and UV lamps do you guys recommend? My geckos use tiny Zilla lamps and UTHs, and don't need UV, so I've never had to deal with this kind of stuff.

 

[Skeep]

I don't know if someone else has successfully used a room that's lived in, so maybe they can comment, but I think you'll need to get an actual enclosure. If I let my gu free roam for several hours, she will still spend most of that free roam time going inside her enclosure because it is much more comfortable for her; it is much warmer than you'll be able to get the room, and the humidity is very high (and I still have trouble with shedding!) You may find that even in the humid hide it is difficult to keep humidity up if it is open to the rest of the room. The other thing is that my gu often likes to hang out in the "middle" zone where the temperature is between the hot and cold side, but you'd only have a hot and cold area without much gradient.

One last thing, when measuring room temperature, keep in mind that the floor is going to be a few degrees colder than the thermostat reading, and the hardwood surface temperatures might be even less than that.

I bought a doggy door for my enclosure, so during free-roam time she can come and go but still keep her cage hot and humid (haven't installed it yet). You might be able to slap some cheap pieces of plywood together and use something like that to let her come and go as she pleases but still have a place more suited to her.

 

[Walter1]

Hello Carson. I would like to second what Skeep said. Might consider a suitably screened in patio for however long your climate allows. You can hang out with her instead of the other way around.